


Doth he not see my ways, and count all my steps?

by BeautifulLife



Series: All This Land and All This Power [2]
Category: Deryni Chronicles - Katherine Kurtz
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Communication Failure, Elinor has a list, F/M, Intrigue, Lack of Communication, Personal Growth, Political Alliances, Problems, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24950494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulLife/pseuds/BeautifulLife
Summary: Elinor comforted herself that they all could be resisted, which is how she stood here, crowned with the silver circlet of a princess. Her husband, Cinhil Haldane, was rapt in the mass but most likely not consumed by yearning for the rituals worked on the nascent knights. He had, only three days earlier, been outraged by the absurdity of his learning to use a sword.“You can’t pray an armed enemy into submission,” she had said, buttering a manchet from her breakfast tray.Elinor, Princess of Gwynedd, has a list of problems to solve if she's to prosper in her new role.
Series: All This Land and All This Power [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805725
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Doth he not see my ways, and count all my steps?

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Job 31:4.

Epiphany began with a mass for the six Michaeline squires who would be knighted that day.

Elinor, Princess of Gwynedd, watched beside her husband in a claret gown that could not detract from his Haldane red. Her only functions here were to show the royal presence and to keep her oldest son from dashing forward to demand to be knighted, fourteen years ahead of his proper time.

Her younger son was safe in the arms of young Megan de Cameron—no, it was Megan’s swain Jamie Drummond, who had long ago been Elinor’s suitor, who cooed over young Ansel and rocked him when he became fretful. There would be a surprise for Jamie later today, one that Elinor expected would please him.

Also with the royal party were Camber, the Earl of Culdi whose plottings had brought them all here; his beautiful daughter Evaine, standing as far from Elinor as she might without donning a Michaeline habit; Evaine’s intended Rhys Thuryn, in his Healer green; lame Revan, now the boys’ playmate and accidental tutor; and young Guaire of Arliss, who had somehow transformed himself from the bosom friend of Elinor’s late husband Cathan to the aide de camp of her former father-in-law.

Father Joram MacRorie, her sleekly competent brother-in-law, second in plotting only to Camber himself, was assisting Vicar General Alister Cullen with the mass.

Elinor comforted herself that they all _could_ be resisted, which is how she stood here, crowned with the silver circlet of a princess. Her husband, Cinhil Haldane, was rapt in the mass but most likely _not_ consumed by yearning for the rituals worked on the nascent knights. He had, only three days earlier, been outraged by the absurdity of his learning to use a sword.

“You can’t pray an armed enemy into submission,” she had said, buttering a manchet from her breakfast tray.

“I am a man of peace,” he’d responded. But he’d stopped short of his favorite gesture of hiding his face in his hands. That afternoon, he’d gone to Grand Master Jebediah d’Alcara for a training regimen that Camber of Culdi had not dictated and could not argue with.

Communion, on such a feast as this, was given in both bread and wine. Watching Cinhil as he swallowed—oh yes, she could see the yearning, the _eagerness_ for God’s presence, that could fester into regret at giving up his priesthood. The glow that surrounded him when he was deep in prayer still manifested, though, so it seemed God smiled on his decision to be king.

As the young Michaelines had filed out to eat a crust and drink a pint of small beer before the longer ceremony of Twelfth Night court, Davin took his opportunity to run to his grandfather. Evaine and Megan hurried to a little door that led to the stair to the viewing gallery. Just twelve days ago, Elinor had entered from that same stair, to marry Cinhil while he was still reeling from being released from his priestly vows.

Today the door served a similar purpose. Evaine emerged, her bright gold tresses combed free of their braids and crowned in holly and mistletoe. At a little shove from Jamie Drummond, Rhys stepped forward in front of the altar. Joram, smiling as he adjusted his stole, came to meet his sister and imminent brother-in-law.

“How can they grin so?” Cinhil murmured as Joram began to speak on the meaning of marriage. “I was so nervous I could scarcely remember what name to call myself by.”

“Evaine and Rhys have been playmates since childhood. Had Rhys not wished to establish a reputation beyond what his foster-father and benefactor could give him, they’d have been married three years since.” _Or had I been willing to take the boys and live with Camber, so Evaine could go to Valoret without leaving her widowed father alone,_ Elinor added to herself.

Happily married as she and Cathan MacRorie had been, she had believed she could not bear to be apart from him. Davin and Ansel were still too young to require the wide-open spaces of the countryside, and she had hoped to make a daughter, or possibly two, with her dashing young husband.

“I, Rhys Malachy Thuryn, only begotten son of Malachy Thuryn and Rosanaugh Fitzwilliam, wittingly and of deliberate mind, do contract marriage with the honorable and noble Evaine Elsa—Elspeth Jerusha—”

“ _Jessamyn,_ ” Evaine hissed, then pressed a hand to her lips. Rhys’ besotted stare never wavered from her eyes, though he blushed dark enough to hide his freckles and clash with his fiery hair.

“Evaine Elspeth Jessamyn MacRorie, only living daughter of Earl Camber of Culdi, and take said lady for my wife and spouse, all others for her forsake, to this I plight my faith and troth.” The last words rattled out such high speed that if Rhys missed a phrase, neither he nor anyone else was likely to notice it.

Evaine waded into her vows with the forceful serenity of a Deryni ritual, only to refer to her new husband as _Rhys Malachite Thuryn._ Nothing might have come of it if Jamie hadn’t started to chuckle.

His laughter spread to Megan, then to Joram, then to Rhys himself, until at last Evaine surrendered, burying her face in her hands to laugh so hard that her wreath slipped askew.

“I don’t think we did so badly,” Cinhil whispered.

“Me neither, Cinhil Donal Ifor Haldane.”

“Why do you have so few names?”

“Laziness.” Her father had sired his three children on three different wives, of which her mother was the best-loved but shortest lived. Michael Howell’s effort to pass on his lands and honor were not to turn out as he had hoped. Elinor herself had seen to that.

It had been surprisingly easy to lie in bed beside her still-new husband and ask for the life of her half-brother. Coel would never bend the knee to a Haldane king. If he did not die defending Imre, he must be executed. Cinhil would spare him, if she wished, but she _did not wish._ Coel had become sick with greed, poisoning everything he touched. He must die, and his lands must go to someone honorable, someone who would be _Cinhil’s_ man, not Camber’s.

Rhys dropped the ring only once, and Joram caught it before it could roll under the altar and be lost forever.

Elinor had always assumed, without troubling herself to imagine it, that when Evaine and Rhys finally married, she and Cathan would be in the throng that rushed to kiss the new bride and welcome Rhys into his new place in the MacRorie family.

The pang beneath her heart when Evaine merely offered her a curtsey was thus unexpected. Cinhil, sensing something wrong, though he knew not what, squeezed Elinor’s hand tighter.

“It is because you are to be queen,” he said quietly.

“It is because she cannot forgive me for being queen.”

Cinhil thought that over as he escorted his wife from the chapel. “She did not…” He blushed so deeply that Elinor could guess his next words. “She did not want to be queen herself?”

“Her faith has never wavered from Rhys. She wanted me to be dedicated to her brother’s memory. None of them… beyond the first few days around the funeral, none of the MacRories has had time to mourn Cathan. Amidst all the plotting, that task was delegated to useless, silly Elinor—”

“You are neither useless nor silly.”

“Perhaps as a MacRorie, I was both. In any wise, it was left to me to mourn Cathan, and when I remarried within the month, that reminded them that _no one_ had thought of him in that time.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of their own need to shape the realm.” They were alone in a corridor, for the moment—a thing rare enough once the daily routine of the haven began. Elinor turned to set her hands against her husband’s crimson chest, touching the golden lion she had embroidered there. His neatly trimmed black beard and hair, his sharp cheekbones and mild gray eyes, had become familiar to her in the little time since their wedding.

She was, for the most part, grateful that wiry, thoughtful Cinhil Haldane was nothing like tall, golden Cathan MacRorie. “Evaine is a MacRorie, as much as any of the others.”

“It is vital to them to _influence,_ ” Cinhil said, repeating what she had told him on that first night they talked in the library. “So being snubbed by Evaine Thuryn is perhaps not so bad a thing.”

*

The formal court took place in the chamber where Cinhil’s great-grandfather Ifor’s portrait hung over the carved fireplace, lest anyone forget that Cinhil, not Camber, was to rule Gwynedd. The room already felt crowded with young knights-to-be in their white robes, and their sponsors in Michaeline blue.

Cinhil settled Elinor in the chair nearest the fireplace. This seemed to defy some order of propriety, for there was whispering and scrabbling, which Cinhil halted with a raised hand. “The throne is where the king seats himself. Will you instruct me on chivalry and then tell me not to make my wife comfortable?”

He seated himself beside her, one ankle resting on his knee in a posture she did not associate with the shy monk he had been. At the king-to-be’s signal, Grand Marshall Jebediah declared the first Twelfth Night court of Prince Cinhil of Gwynedd to be in session.

The court had been Elinor’s idea, formed on New Year’s morning when Cinhil demanded that there must be _something_ he could do to remind Camber that although he, Cinhil, needed instruction, it was to be _he_ who ruled, not the Earl of Culdi.

She had sifted through all her memories of what Imre did in Valoret—hunting, jousting, archery, wrestling, fencing, setting ever more elaborate fashions, dangling royal favor in front of eligible maidens and their fathers before yanking it away—and found little that a bookish king could emulate other than holding the seasonal court.

But the seasonal court had merits beyond reminding Camber who would be king.

Knightings, of course, could not be performed by Cinhil, as he himself was not yet a knight. So far, he had not yet so much as lifted a sword. Jebediah’s training regimen had him starting with a wooden practice weapon, such as the pages used.

Jebediah, seated to the other side of the fireplace, tapped his sword on each set of young shoulders and accepted the new knights’ oaths, sworn to the Michaeline order. As a new knight rose, his sponsor belted a blue surcoat over the white tunic, circled narrow young hips with the white belt of chivalry, and set spurs to polished boots.

Elinor had stood through this ritual at court since she was fourteen. Her father had been ambitious, to the point that she herself had been dangled in front of Imre when he was a prince, just as her brother Coel now dangled their half-sister Melissa.

There was no chance a Deryni of Imre’s rank and power would marry Elinor Howell, daughter of a man with lands but no title, possessed of but weak Deryni heritage. As a maiden, she had taken her place among Queen Pasqualetta’s ladies; as a wife, she had served Princess Ariella.

In all that decade of courts, she had remarked to herself again and again how it was men who loved ceremony and ritual, as all ceremony and ritual seemed to be about men. True, women had their wedding days and the queen’s Maying, but it seemed little enough beside the endless cycle of pages turned to squires turned to knights, of ordinations, of oaths, of coronations that allowed men to dress up in pounds of gold and silver embroidery to strut in front of their peers.

It seemed to her, sometimes, as if men preferred to be judged by the color of their vestments rather than the worth of their character. The first was supposed to guarantee the second, but she had seen too much at Imre’s court to fully believe it.

The Michaelines’ ceremony ended with a great stomping of feet and rhythmic shouting. Elinor’s scan of the gathered folk paused on Evaine and Rhys, all but nuzzling one another, and stopped on Camber, whose distant expression suggested he was forming a thesis on the historic origins of the Michaelines’ chant.

Young Guaire of Arliss stepped forward into the silence, holding a roll of parchment tied with red ribbon and dangling seals. “Let the honorable and right James Drummond approach!”

Jamie started as if he he’d been poked in the back. He handed Ansel to a distracted Megan, whose eyes followed him as he took the few steps to kneel in front of Cinhil’s chair.

“James Drummond, you have pleased Us well.” Cinhil’s gentle voice was barely audible to Elinor, beside him, but nudging her royal husband in public would be uncouth. “When We come into Our throne, you shall be granted the lands, honors, and income of the traitorous Coel Howell, to belong to you and your direct heirs of the body as long as Gwynedd shall stand.”

Jamie gaped as he accepted the scroll from Guaire. Megan, in the crowd, was hiding her expression behind Ansel’s baby head. Camber wore the sort of smile that could be read to mean anything.

“Furthermore,” Cinhil said, his voice louder and steadier, “I raise you to the title and dignities of Baron Drummond, to be confirmed upon my own coronation as King in Gwynedd.”

 _This_ had not been discussed or rehearsed. Guaire’s wide grin indicated he’d been in on the plan. Megan was so excited that she handed Ansel to a reluctant Rhys, the better to bounce up and down, squealing.

Jamie set his hands between Cinhil’s. “I, James, Baron Drummond, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship.” He paused as his voice cracked on the words. “Faith and truth I will bear to you, against all manner of men. So help me God.”

As Cinhil spoke the answering formula, promising to protect and honor his liege man, he seemed to glow with the faint golden light that appeared when he prayed. His hands were shaking as he pulled them away, oaths done.

Silence stretched to awkwardness, until Jebediah rapped his knuckles on his chair arm. “Arise, Baron Drummond. And may you lead a certain lady to the nuptial altar by Candlemas.”

Elinor could not help but smile as Megan all but exploded with glee when Jamie clasped her hand, turned her toward Camber, and asked the Earl’s permission to marry his ward. Camber might _wish_ for some grander marriage, as the lands of Deryni who would not yield to Cinhil were returned to their former human lords—but he could hardly say _no_ with so many eyes on him.

Camber must _now_ come forward, hand-in-hand with Davin, feeling already off-balance. Elinor nodded regally to Jebediah. She had not expected the Michaeline Grand Marshall would be an ally in the cause of restraining Camber’s power over their intended king.

Fortunately, Davin was enthralled by the high formality of the occasion, for Cinhil had so far shown little ease with his stepsons. When he found Elinor with her children, he allowed them to climb on him, he asked them stilted questions about their lessons and meals, and he had even, one afternoon, tried to play toy soldiers with them, only to become frustrated that they were too young to have any grasp of military tactics.

The boy put his little hands between Cinhil’s and made his oath in a piping treble voice. His awe must have calmed his stepfather, for Cinhil’s golden glow intensified, until he seemed to possess a halo as he turned his attention to Camber.

“Before I confirm your grandson as your heir, Earl Camber, will you swear your oath of fealty between my hands?”

Camber raised his bowed silver-gilt head to look Cinhil in the eye, his expression mild. “Your grace, I must confess an existing oath to the usurper who sits on the throne of Gwynedd in Valoret.”

The glance between Cinhil and Jebediah was pure puzzlement. Guaire had retreated to some corner that Elinor could not identify without turning in her chair.

“Do you?” Cinhil said. “Do you, indeed? How is it that your proposing to restore the Haldane line to the throne does not already make you forsworn?”

 _Because it’s Camber._ Elinor bit her lip against a nervous giggle. This game was serious. Getting _Camber’s_ oath was the secret purpose of this Twelfth Night court, for she had been sure that what Camber swore, he would honor.

If Camber could _not_ be gotten under control with oaths and fealty, the daily task of managing him so that Cinhil could retain a will of his own promised to be exhausting.

“In truth, I have wrestled greatly with my conscience on this matter. If a man has broken an oath once, can he be trusted with oaths again?” Camber could not ignore the angry glimmer in Cinhil’s eye, for he added: “Broken without proper dispensation, of course. Some oaths must be dispensed for the greater good, and there is a procedure for such, which when followed, cleanses the soul of any grime of besmirched faith.”

Cinhil’s next breath was so deep that it seemed the Haldane lion on his chest roared. Elinor had often felt that Camber somehow used up all the air in the room. Now her husband seemed to be fighting for breath against the Deryni Earl’s charisma. His golden aura flickered, but did not go out.

“Do tell me, Earl, how you have satisfied your own conscience on this matter of bent and splintered oaths?”

“Just as an order that breaks the bounds of honor and justice must be disobeyed, an oath that compels the vassal to breach honor and perform injustices can and should be broken. In asking what no ruler should ask, that I countenance the heedless killing of innocents, the usurper in Valoret has created the circumstances in which I _must_ break my oath to him. And yet, it still stands as a stain on my conscience—”

A loud snort from crowd interrupted the Earl of Culdi’s musings. “Give over, Camber,” Vicar General Alister Cullen said. “If you’re contrite, I will absolve you and we can get on to supper.”

“I would have to examine my conscience—”

“If we’ve gotten this far without your doing so, we are well and thoroughly… in deep trouble.” Cullen made the sign of the cross in Camber’s direction and murmured the Latin phrases for absolution. “I can’t make your oath to our Haldane be your penance, as then it would be under duress. You are therefore enjoined that from now until Candlemas, you will pray each morning and evening Psalm 72 in its entirety.”

“‘Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness to the king’s son,’” Camber murmured.

“Precisely. The prayers of a man of such conscience as yourself can only do our king-to-be good.”

_The Michaelines do not want Camber to be in the saddle once Cinhil is crowned._

Such a fragile alliance might crack when Cinhil sat on the throne, but in the fissures lay the opportunities for him to be his own king. Elinor counted the words as Camber swore. There seemed to be no omissions or hesitations.

*

At the Twelfth Night feast, unlike at his own wedding feast, Cinhil managed enough conversation with Rhys, Alister Cullen, and a roster of Michaelines that he was not the first to finish his deliberately meager portion of each course.

He might never be a merry king—and he could not be accused of the sin of gluttony—but he was shaping to be more confident. Elinor was not unaware of the ribald jokes on how marriage had made a man of him. If it was the worst that could be said of Cinhil’s first fortnight as official pretender to the crown of Gwynedd, they had done well.

Evaine gave most of her attention to her new husband, her father, and her shadow Megan de Cameron, who was over the moon about her future as the Baroness Drummond. The overlapping pools of conversation left Elinor isolated as she never had been at Imre’s court.

She missed, with an acute pang low in her stomach, the cheerful chatter of Delilah de Santare, the scholarship of Lisette Carmichael, and even Marianne MacDhugal’s endless opinions on which of the unmarried gentlemen looked best in the tight hose and short tunics that Imre had made the fashion. As princess, she had not yet developed the manner to make herself the focus of attention. _Two gray mice in silver crowns: the Pretender of Gwynedd and his wife._

A confection of twisted bread and spun sugar, shaped like the Haldane lion, was borne in, to oohs and ahs. This might be a court of exile, but it _was_ a king’s court. Cinhil cut the first slice, making a noise that might have been a laugh—yes, he was _smiling_. The pastry hen a shared with Elinor was rich with marchpane and sufficiently studded with raisins that if she made each a separate bite, she could avoid feeling so obviously left out of conversation.

Toasts were, like everything else in Cinhil’s court, more austere than she was accustomed to. Cinhil proposed Evaine’s happiness. Rhys proposed Davin’s. Camber toasted the new knights, and Alistair Cullen toasted the king. There was still wine left in her silver cup when tables were pushed back for dancing.

As a quartet of Michaelines struck up a tune on sackbut, shawn, lute, and tambour, Guaire d’Arliss nudged the king-to-be. “Pray start the dancing, Your Grace, or I’ll never get my turn with your lovely lady.”

Cinhil stuttered, shaking his head. _Twenty years in a monastery—did_ nobody _realize he would have no idea how to dance?_ “Lady Evaine… I surrend—Lady Evaine, Lord Rhys, would you honor Us by opening the dancing?”

“Give them one full round of—” Elinor wiggled her fingers to indicate the pattern of bowing and circling that Evaine and Rhys had engaged in. “Jamie, Megan, will you join us?”

Someone in the Michaelines must have guessed her intent, for as soon as she set and Guaire formed up a set, pairs of knights followed them. That militant priests could dance was a surprise. That they danced more fleetly and light-footed than she did—that felt like a challenge.

“How long has it been since we did this?” Guaire asked as he promenaded her down the set.

“Two months, no more.” She reached for some sense of familiarity, but the glittering balls of Imre’s court were so far away that she felt as if she’d stretched for a high shelf in her old still room, only to find dusty jars were just beyond her fingertips.

“It seems like a lifetime ago. I was a child, to be besotted with Earl Maldred, when such a man as Camber exists.” He spun her neatly, then released her into the set.

Later, knights performed their sword dances over—and sometimes wielding—naked blades. Elinor gasped with the other ladies at the flash of metal and blur of moving feet, as the blue-clad Michaelines jumped and tumbled.

The true surprise came when the sword-dancers retreated to their tankards of ale, and the musicians struck up a tune she barely remembered from her childhood.

Cinhil started to tap his feet.

“Would my lord and husband dance with his humble wife?” Elinor asked.

“I could not… it has been more than twenty years…” His fingers took up the rhythm as he silenced his feet.

“But you _have_ danced it, more than twenty years ago. Please show me how it’s done.”

The king-to-be had… not _precisely_ two left feet, but a left foot and a foot that was not sure of its direction or identity. He jigged and twirled with valiant confusion, as Elinor did her best to follow him, grateful that the old country dance had some parts where he must simply steer her where she should go.

And so Cinhil of Gwynedd found himself laughing as he skipped through a grand right-and-left, then spun his wife of twelve days in a pirouette that left both of them dizzy.

*

In bed with Cinhil after the most spontaneous coming-together they’d enjoyed so far, Elinor eased herself upright against the pillows, biting her lip on an obscure urge to cry.

When she brushed a hand across her husband’s cheek, it was already wet with tears.

“It was a success beyond expectation,” he said. “I don’t know why… I feel the loss of my priesthood more for having enjoyed today.”

“All the things we might have been.”

“Did I always, in some locked corner of my soul, want this?”

Elinor conjured a ball of handfire so she could see her husband lying beside her. Neat dark beard, chiseled cheekbones, gray eyes half-closed in that way that made men’s lashes look so thick and so vulnerable… wiry frame that her hands and lips had come to know… the keen, if sometimes fussy and over-scrupulous mind… _Had she, while married to golden Cathan, sweet Cathan, loyal and not terribly bright Cathan, secretly in some corner of her soul wanted a man like this?_

“Guaire reminded me that, had things been different, we would have danced together in Valoret tonight.”

“Had Imre not murdered your husband.”

She turned the thought over in her mind, trying to remember what color Imre had declared for Twelfth Night court. Was it gold, for the gifts of the Magi to the Holy Child? Valoret would have been warmer, thicker scented, brighter with candles and louder with talk.

In ten years of dancing until her slippers were in tatters, Elinor had always—except on her wedding night—slept alone. Cathan’s place was with Imre, and Imre’s way was to drink until dawn, as his friends drifted into slumber around him. More than once, Cathan had stumbled home as the bells tolled noon, only to sleep the day away or growl like a bear about his headache.

There had been a visit from Joram and Rhys after Michaelmas. They came and went so swiftly that they were gone before she returned to greet them. Cathan said they’d spoken of nothing of import, which merely meant—her hands clenched to fists as she grasped the thought— _they had told him nothing of a plot already in motion._

“You are distressed,” Cinhil said, wrapping a hand around one of hers.

 _I might be in a cell in Valoret tonight._ Surely Camber would have made some plan to extract his son and grandsons from Imre’s court, once Cinhil was safely hidden. The Earl of Culdi could not simply _disappear_ and leave his heirs in danger.

“I was less happy in Valoret than I believed myself to be. My trust was given with more innocence than sense.”

“You can talk about your husband, if you wish.”

She bounced her free fist on her thigh. “He was a courtier, with all that means. Puissant in arms, dashing on the dance floor, gently spoken and persuasive in the ear of the King. Not so scholarly nor so devious as his father. He had the family urge to _influence,_ but in Cathan it took the form of making people his friends. He was loyal to the bone.”

“A bonnie knight and brave.” _Unlike me,_ Cinhil’s tone conveyed, as clearly as if he’d said the words.

“If I think too long upon it, I fear to find myself _disappointed_ in him.” She touched his cheek again, thinking with all her might _you are my husband._

Cinhil kissed the fist he held—a move of unprecedented tenderness. “I am honored.”

*

In the days between Twelfth Night and Candlemas, Elinor struggled with a new awkwardness around her husband, as if she had offered a gift that now seemed too precious to surrender.

Cinhil, for his part, sweated at his weapons practice in the morning and his diplomacy practice in the afternoon, putting new muscle on his wiry body and new ideas to wrestle in his head. He set aside an hour after lunch for his stepsons, though he did little more than watch them play while peppering them with questions too complex for their young minds.

None of this prevented Elinor from pursuing the aims that she had listed a few days after Twelfth Night, each written in the neat hand she used for household accounts.

  1. _Learn how the Michaelines dance._



When heavy with Davin and then with Ansel, she had not devoted her every hour to reading or to sewing by lamp light. She had danced until her gowns could not conceal her condition and ridden until she was too bulky to sit a horse comfortably. She had taken long walks, gathering flowers.

“A healthy birth should call for no special measures,” Rhys Thuryn had said when she cornered him in the little chamber off the still room that he’d taken as his infirmary and office. He’d grinned so widely that Elinor needed no mind-to-mind contact to know he was thinking of getting Evaine with child.

“I feel… squishy in a way that isn’t right. We haven’t been here two months, and I don’t move as easily as I once did.”

“You’re still mourning Cathan. When you feel the joy of a new life stirring, these worries will vanish.” He’d turned back to the scroll that lay beside a row of clay vessels, three containing powder, the fourth holding tiny bones that Elinor recognized as a rat.

She’d clasped the fingers of her left hand around her right wrist. “I’m all bone, yet nothing feels as solid as it should.”

“That’s because the problem is in your soul and must be addressed with prayer. Trust me, Elinor. There’s no reason to expect any difficulties with a birth, and I’ll be here to block any pain.”

Coming from that frustrating conversation, she’d walked the corridors of the haven, trying to pace away her roiling emotions. It was _not_ her imagination that her thighs ached and her breath came quicker after a walk that would not have taken her from the castle to the gates of Valoret.

There was more to birth than enduring pain. There were months of balancing the weight of the babe against stomach and bladder. There was pushing, endless pushing. There were the weeks afterward, when she felt as if her innards had been turned inside out and repacked like careless luggage.

The thought of doing all this while feeling _mushy_ brought a wave of dread. The vision of a baby stuck in her womb because she lacked the strength to _push_ was doubtless foolish—Rhys would not allow a Haldane heir to die thus—but there was a truth in it. If she had little strength for labor, might not the MacRories let her die and marry Cinhil to a more biddable queen?

Her next visit was to the training yard where Jebediah d’Alcara supervised her husband’s sparring with a wooden sword against a dummy stuffed with hay. In truth, his attention was more given to the ranks of knights using swords against one another, but she could see his eyes wander to Cinhil, shirtless, sweating through his routine of blows.

“My princess,” Jebediah said with a bow. “This is an unexpected honor.” _This is unseemly,_ the tilt of his lips seemed to say.

Elinor had wondered at her own temerity—but a queen could surely go where she liked.

“My lord and husband is pleased with his training regimen.” She held her tone in that range where it might be a statement or a question.

“He proceeds.”

“The dancing of your knights at Twelfth Night was impressive.”

“They are trained to build great strength and balance here.” Jebediah gestured loosely in the direction of his flat belly. “Combined with drills for speed, it gives fleetness of foot, as useful on the battlefield as in the hall.”

 _Strength in their bellies._ Elinor suppressed a smile. “My ward Revan… he has no wish to be a knight, but I thought perhaps some form of training might ease the difficulties of his lameness?”

Jebediah opened his mouth—no doubt to disagree, but she lifted her chin and raised her eyebrows as she would at a servant who balked at a simple and sensible order.

“Your Grace. There is an arms master who works with knights as they heal from injuries. Perhaps he’ll have some ideas to try on the boy.”

Sir Leonidas proved to be a swarthy man of middle years, with a bulging gut under his blue surcoat. He had no doubt he could find exercises that would ease strain on Revan’s back and build his stamina. If the princess wished to accompany her ward and try a few exercises herself… he chuckled and shrugged.

“Picking up a sword, now, that is not for ladies, Your Grace.”

Up to that moment, Elinor had not seriously thought of picking up a sword. “The practice swords are but sticks. Why might I not wave a stick about?”

His lengthy reply veered between technical discussion of the configuration of a woman’s upper body (shrouded in terms so coy and vague that Elinor gave up on understanding) and the propriety of ladies using violence. Elinor let the words roll over her as so many past words had.

 _Propriety_ was wielded against her as _duty_ was against Cinhil. His birth loaded burdens on him because the Magi’s gifts to _Imre_ had not included temperance or charity. Her birth bound her hands with silken fetters, the better for men like Camber to trade her for advantages.

As coin for alliances, she herself had no allies, and allies were what she needed most.

  1. _Mend bridges with Evaine._



This, of all tasks, was the one Elinor liked least. She and Evaine had never been true friends: the family joke that Elinor was second only to her sister-in-law in beauty carried its sting, for it always held the reminder that Elinor was second _in the one strength she was granted,_ while Evaine had no peer in intellect, grace, or magic.

Had _Evaine_ not laughed and nodded with the rest, before dismissing Elinor to her babies and her sewing, they might have found some common ground. As it was, Evaine sat in on the men’s discussions, while Elinor was once again treated as a brood mare who might graze in her pasture and not bother the councils of the wise.

If there were ever a time when Evaine should be receptive, it was in the glow of early marriage, with the added excitement of preparing Megan for her wedding. Megan adored Evaine—the more because she’d seen her only on visits to the countryside, while Elinor had been charged with the girl’s education and her introduction to Princess Ariella’s retinue.

 _Ariella,_ Elinor reminded herself as she hesitated at the door the formal chamber where King Ifor’s portrait hung. _If I am legitimately Princess of Gwynedd, she is no princess at all._

Evaine had taken over a small table flanked by two high-backed chairs, strewn with cushions. As she steadied a text with her right hand, her left fussed at the wimple she now wore as a married woman.

“I thought to find you here while the men were at their arms,” Elinor said.

After a pause of three breaths, Evaine rose and dropped a minimal curtsey. “Your Grace.”

Elinor forced congeniality into her tone. “Is that truly how you greet your sister?”

“It is how I greet my princess and future queen.”

If Evaine did not choose to make this easy, so be it. _She most craves to influence,_ Elinor reminded herself. What influence Elinor could offer seemed suddenly meager, compared to molding a king and using magic to reshape the world itself.

Elinor sat and gestured for Evaine to do likewise. She let her sister-in-law sit in silence until Evaine’s gaze had wandered longingly to her scroll, then back to the hands folded obediently in her lap, wedding ring uppermost.

“Who would you propose for a wife for Guaire d’Arliss?”

Evaine blinked. “Father’s aide?”

“He’s sacrificed a great deal for our cause. It must be lonely for him, with every other man here married or celibate, save your father.” Elinor paused, lifting a hand so Evaine could not rush to answer. “Your father, too, might like a bride. Many at court in Valoret thought he would wed Megan when she came of age.”

“My father is entirely devoted to my mother’s memory.”

 _I doubt he has thought of Lady Jocelyn once since this all began._ Without physical contact, and with Elinor’s shields up, Evaine _probably_ could not hear the thought. “How chivalrous of him. Guaire, though, is young and hot-blooded. He could easily be tempted to be indiscreet. A ride to the village, a buxom Deryni lass… our cause might turn on his ability to resist.”

“The bloodlines of Gwynedd’s families are hardly my study.”

“No, but they are no one else’s, it seems, other than to confirm that Cinhil is Haldane. The men are so caught up in their wargames that they will never think of the simplest things that you and I know are necessary.”

Evaine tried the chin-lift and eyebrow-raise, so deftly that Elinor had to stiffen her shoulders to not quail. “You lived at court, Elinor. You surely know bloodlines better than I would. If you’re trying to lure me into becoming a lady in waiting, you may count me honored, but there are far better uses for my skills.”

No, Evaine was _definitely_ not going to make this easy. Were they at court, Elinor could simply shun her sister-in-law. But with only three adult women locked up together for the better part of a year, Elinor _must_ have peace.

She would also, realistically, need ladies in waiting. Sorting trustworthy contenders from among the daughters of Deryni families who chose to support Cinhil and human ones looking for preferment promised to be headache-inducing. She _must_ start with a core of women she knew were loyal to herself.

She had seen Ariella, frustrated with one courtier or another, grab a wrist and _force_ rapport until she got what she wanted. Seeing Lisette Carmichael’s brown eyes go blank and her jaw slack, seeing her _sleepwalk_ to do Ariella’s bidding, had frightened Elinor to her core. To be in the grip of another’s power like that, to watch helplessly from behind your own eyes as you did another’s bidding—it was the stuff of stories told around the fire to frighten children.

Lisette had remembered nothing, a discovery that left Elinor with nightmares for weeks. If someone meddled with her, she would _never know_.

Whether she would have been tempted if she’d had the power to force rapport, she would also never know; but she was glad _not_ to be tempted.

She folded her hands against her belly so that Evaine could not easily grab _her_. Subtlety had failed. Truth would have to do. “I miss such friendship as we had. I need you to understand that my wedding Cinhil was no more a betrayal of my vows to Cathan than it was of Cinhil’s vows to the priesthood.”

“Cinhil had to be released from his vows.” Evaine’s tone could have chilled all the ale in the haven.

“And I was already released by Cathan’s death.”

“I know the bond that Rhys and I have. It would shatter my soul to be parted from him in this life, though I have assurance we will be joined again in the next. You, however, _you_ were able to marry again with a month, to a _human_. You desecrate my brother’s memory.” Evaine clenched her hands on the arms of her chair, her scroll forgotten in her lap. “If saying that be treason, good luck to you in doing anything about it, _princess._ ”

“We have enough treason in this place for all of us. I need no more.” Elinor felt heat rising in her face as bile curdled in her belly. “I do not think… you _know_ Cathan’s closest bond was with Imre.”

“You are Deryni.”

“Cathan did not open his mind to me from Michaelmas until the night he died.” The words splattered on the stone floor. “Yes, we had some intimacies, some joys that I have not yet achieved with Cinhil. But the bond you speak of, the soul-deep connection… I loved Cathan and he was a fine husband to me. Maybe my Deryni gifts were too weak to give him more.”

“You felt no loss when he died?”

“I felt a terrible loss when his body was brought to me. I have felt it every day since. If you ask whether I felt the moment of his death or knew his soul was departed… no, I did not.” Elinor blinked back hot tears, whether for Cathan or for what they had not had together, she did not know.

“I cannot… Cathan did not have…”

“Perhaps he had it with Imre. I was his wife, not his soul mate.”

Evaine held out her left hand, palm up. “Will you show me?”

“There is nought to show. Our moments of rapport were… not to be shared.”

“No.” Evaine pressed her lips together, blinking hard. “Will you let me feel his death with you? What you knew of it—”

“Swear on your wedding ring that you will not take me over, nor meddle in my head in any way.”

“I swear it. You may control the link, if you can.”

Hesitantly, Elinor laid her right hand on Evaine’s. The other woman’s presence seemed to radiate like heat from her palm: brilliant, powerful, contented outside of the moment’s grief, assured of her status as beloved wife and favored child.

Elinor lowered her own shields and _remembered._

_She had leisure to have her hair combed out by Megan, as Princess Ariella had insisted on a long nap, followed by a bath in milk, at which only her favorites need attend her. Elinor’s position was a favor to Cathan more than anything of her own, which on days such as this was a relief. The rhythmic stroking of her hair soothed her as she dandled Ansel on her knee. Davin played with his toy soldiers by the fireplace._

_Cathan, gorgeous in sparkling white, strode into her chamber and planted a kiss on her lips, to Megan’s amusement. He had been passionate yesterday—more so than in months—but still closed to her, a body satisfied by a body. Time must eventually heal him, and if time was not enough, perhaps a doting daughter in the summer would be._

_He must go to Imre, of course. Elinor and Megan would join him at the feast. Her own white velvet dress was laid across the bed, next to icy satin for Megan. She must see that Megan danced with eligible men, not just handsome second and third sons._

_She had gone to the feast—she was sure of it, she remembered the milling courtiers, as Imre did not appear. He had come late, attired in red, a bloodstain against the snowy court he’d demanded. Even as she knew something was wrong, she did not_ know. _When Guaire would not answer where Cathan was, when he insisted on escorting her home early while Megan remained under the care of other ladies, her fears took no particular form._

_Not until she saw Cathan’s body, soaked in blood that had dried to deep burgundy, his face a rictus of innocent surprise, did she know he was dead. Even then, she did not throw herself across his body, for that might stain her dress. She held his cool hand. The weight felt different than it had in life, but there was not a sense of here or there. She might believe easily enough that this was some cruel prank of Imre’s, and the real Cathan would walk through the door._

_That thought haunted her throughout the cleaning of his body and all the preparations to take him home, until she thought she would go mad with turning toward movement caught by the corner of her eye. She felt no different—she felt completely empty—she felt filled with a leaden rage. She prayed the required prayers in a loop of endless supplication, and the Holy Mother responded by expelling the deeply wanted child from her womb in a haze of blood and pain._

“Enough.” Evaine broke the contact, shaking her hand as if she’d been burned. “I believe you. Holy Mother of God, I believe you. You didn’t _feel…_ you don’t _see…_ how do you live half-blindfolded like that?”

Elinor crossed the room to pour herself a cup of watered wine. Reliving the night of Cathan’s death and the loss of his final child was not so painful as living it the first time, but she felt as if her wishes and emotions had poured across the rapport into Evaine and left her empty. “How do fish breathe in water?”

“We believe Cinhil can obtain Deryni-like powers. You know he has shields.”

“Yes.” No need _yet_ to trust Evaine with the knowledge that Cinhil seemed to have abilities beyond shields. “Would you like wine?”

“I should be serving you—”

“You are still my sister.” She brought the second cup to Evaine, being careful not to let their fingers brush. The promise to not invade her mind had applied only to her memories of Cathan’s death.

“Rhys will be the court Healer, I suppose.”

“None could be more worthy.”

“The Baron of Nyford has a daughter near marrying age and no reason to love Imre. She’s Deryni, of course. I believe she’s fostered to my aunt Aislinn MacLean in Kierney.”

“How does your aunt’s family stand with Imre?” Elinor vaguely recalled a ruddy-haired MacLean, too young to be Camber’s generation, who spent a few weeks each year at court. His wife surely stayed in Kierney.

“I don’t know. They knew nothing of our plans.” Evaine turned the silver cup in her hands, clicking her wedding ring against it gently. “We ought to save Guaire for the daughter of one of the Deryni lords who _won’t_ surrender when Imre is defeated.”

“If I had such a daughter among my ladies, I’d never dare turn my back.”

“We thought to put Megan in such a court. If Father believed it within the abilities of a girl of sixteen—”

“At sixteen, Earl Camber was a deacon with no thought of worldly matters. You never spent a season among Ariella’s ladies. Why not?”

“Mother died the year I came of age. Father thought it best that I stay in the country and learn to manage a great house. I was always certain to marry Rhys…” Evaine’s voice trailed off questioningly. “He did not want me near Prince Imre? Surely there was no thought of that.”

“For whatever reason, he did not think you safe in such a place. A lady’s prospects at court depend on her power and her ability to make alliances that will defend her. As Cathan’s wife, I was able to shield Megan somewhat, and her merry temperament spoke for her—but the Deryni daughters her own age thought little of her, and will think less if they are bartered in marriage for their inheritances.”

“I had not thought—”

“Evaine, you have lived in a glittering bubble of people who adore you—”

“Father told me a great deal about court—”

“Camber told you fairytales of his own strategic brilliance and rapier wit. He did not tell you of the delicate balancing of kingly whims and courtly rivalries, of the art of saying enough but not too much, of what it is like to wake each morning knowing that your life and fortunes hang on whether your bow is deep enough or whether you lose graciously at games.”

“He called King Blaine his friend—”

“Cathan called Imre _friend,_ and look where it got him. Cathan learned the art of being a courtier at your father’s knee. It taught him enough to play the game, but not enough to survive it. And you thought to set _Cinhil_ amidst a court of seething Deryni and sycophant humans, supported by a queen barely out of the nursery. For _so it would have gone._ Cinhil is a better man than Imre, but his court will not be better than Imre’s unless we make it so.”

“You wish Guaire to marry soon so you will have another lady you can trust.”

Elinor applauded gently. “With Megan and a wife for Guaire, I have two trusted friends—three, if you’ll be of that number. It is barely a beginning.”

Evaine rose to pace. “We dealt little with humans outside our own vassals, and I would not put more of them in harm’s way.”

“What of human families who lost their lands in the first Festillic invasion? There must be daughters, unless…” _Unless Imre, guessing our intention, has slaughtered the families most likely to support us._ A trail of the dead such as that would haunt Cinhil’s conscience to madness.

“The Vicar General had a list of human wives for Cinhil, all of impeccable background. We might find one to do for Guaire.”

  1. _Find a wife for Guaire d’Arliss._



“What if I have ideas of my own?” Guaire asked with a laugh as he trotted a knight across Davin’s toy battle.

Elinor picked at a crooked stitch in the gown she was altering for Megan to wear as a bride. “You never seemed to have a particular flirt at court.”

“My fancy ran free among the flowers of Valoret. Most of whom were Deryni and wouldn’t look at me twice, even if their fathers approved it. Which they did not, since I offered little in the way of lands and titles.”

“So what is wrong with the Vicar General’s list? The girls are all human, noble, marriageable, and free of scandal.”

“Do you _know_ any of them? Other than the lovely Megan de Cameron, that is, whose heart is already taken?”

Vexed, Elinor had to confess she did not. Humans had been of little concern to her—humans who might sympathize with the overthrow of Imre, even less so.

Guaire shook his head. “Take this one. Orlaith nic Osgar of Carthane. The Carthane pretenders show up every few years, dealing flattery and favors to try to get their lands and titles back. They’ll be all over Cinhil, too, when the time comes.”

“So marry the daughter, be given the lands and titles, and live happily ever after.” In such a situation, the girl would be bargained away, regardless. Guaire was at least young and merry.

“The heir is a brother. Rumor says he considered going into a monastery, but Earl Camber says no Carthane would ever put God before a chance at preferment.” When he mentioned the earl, Guaire’s face took on the beatific look of a person at prayer. “Why is it you’re so eager to marry me off?”

Elinor swallowed her uneasiness. “I shall need ladies loyal to myself. They may as well be the wives of men sure to rise at court. Unless you have a religious vocation or… other reasons to not wish to marry?”

“Beyond lack of income to support a wife? I burn for no one, and lacking flame, see fit to wander alone, as a leaf before the wind. That’s a terrible mixture of poetry for you. I’ll never make a troubadour.”

It occurred to her that women’s implements of needle and thread were utterly inadequate to the moment when a person needs to throw something at another person’s head. Men could throw gauntlets or daggers or chalices, but women had to sit demurely, making tiny, precise movements, while men blustered about.

“Very well,” was all she said.

Guaire answered some question of Davin’s about horses, then sat back on his heels. “I’ve an idea for how to bring women here, without the risk of bottom-feeders or traitors. Will you trust me to see if it’s possible?”

 _Or you could tell me what it is and see if I like it._ Guaire’s chivalry and loyalty were never in doubt, but the implied threat of _if you ask questions, you can’t have what you want_ made Elinor’s blood simmer. “Of course I will.”

  1. _Get with child._



The difficulty was that Rhys Thuryn took it upon himself to inform Cinhil that a woman might conceive only at certain points in her cycle.

“It seems an imposition to come to you when you might not… when we might not…” Cinhil stood helplessly in his shift, wringing his hands.

“Pleasure is… a bond between a husband and wife.” She had, by now, shown him ways to pleasure her, building a precarious balance between aching for her first husband and desiring her second.

“Saint Thomas Aquinas says a man who comes to his wife only for pleasure treats her as a prostitute. We must not be led astray by women’s carnal nature, for it lowers…” He trailed off under the pressure of her most blank, demure gaze.

“Really?”

“We ought to abstain on saints’ days and on Sunday, at least.”

“And if those fall within the fertile moments of my cycle?”

“That is a trial God places before us.”

Elinor silently counted to ten, then twenty, then decided reaching fifty was a worthwhile goal.

“You do not agree.” Cinhil’s voice was barely audible.

“If Your Grace prefers to come to me only for the purposes of conceiving an heir, I can scarcely argue your will. But I am baffled as to how the Church fathers see this as respecting me more than a prostitute.”

“You would be revered as the mother of my child.”

“A royal brood mare.”

His face froze, stricken.

“Did Rhys tell you that was what I was meant to be?” she asked softly.

“No. Of course not. You are to be my queen—”

“Do you believe Rhys touches Evaine only when they wish to make a child?”

Cinhil blushed a brighter red than his own coat of arms. “I could scarcely… I would not… no. No, I do not.”

“Do you believe Rhys sees Evaine as a prostitute?”

“No one would dare!”

“When you insisted on marrying me instead of Megan, did you intend that I should be a better and more docile royal brood mare?”

“Of course not!” Cinhil smacked a fist against his own thigh, then collapsed on the edge of the bed, hiding his face in his hands. “I thought you to be a companion who would sit beside me and help me with this impossible task of ruling. I merely did not expect… did not expect…”

She reached out, letting her knuckles graze his back.

“I did not expect to take so much pleasure in the act! Surely this can only be sinful.”

Her education did not equip her to argue the wisdom of the Church fathers—especially not against a man whose order was known for its scholarly bent. Instead, she ran her hand gently across his back, drawing circles with her fingers to soothe his temper into something more pliable that might be shaped into desire.

“Pray do not,” he moaned. “Woman, do not lead me into temptation!”

Elinor withdrew her hand, clasping it as if she’d been burned. “Pray upon it, then,” she said wearily.

  1. _See Megan married and settled._



This, at least, was easy. On the Feast of St. Ermenilda, Megan all but danced down the aisle of the Michaeline chapel to meet her Jamie.

Elinor winced as Ansel jostled in her arms. She had been sore in places not accounted for by her physical exercises since… well, she had felt _thus_ twice before, and each time had been with child.

She glanced sideways at Cinhil, who seemed oblivious to Davin yanking at his hand with excitement. Her husband had not returned to her bed since she had sent him to pray, so she felt no urgency to share her suspicion that she was bearing an heir.

He had, indeed, scarcely looked at her, while spending more of his time sitting in the room where his great-grandfather’s portrait hung, talking with Evaine of this and that. When Elinor joined them with her perpetual sewing, Cinhil made an effort to include his wife in the rambling conversation of Deryni powers, ancient scrolls, and obscure remarks made by kings Augurin, Bearand, and an earlier Cinhil.

Elinor learned a great deal while learning nothing. Talking of history with Cinhil, she adored and missed. Evaine’s curiosity, however, was knotted into tangles of arcane rituals and long-lost spells. When Elinor pressed her for some _application—_ a spell that would preserve medicines for longer or prevent milk from going sour—Evaine waved away such concerns as a matter for old wives and hedge witches.

An old wife or two might have been handy in the haven. The Michaelines lived in an unsettling blend of comfort and ascetism, where the milk might sour unremarked, but the beer never would.

No Michaelines had come to this wedding, save Father Joram who was presiding. The family was present, of course: Evaine and Rhys arm in arm, with Earl Camber off to one side. Young Revan, whose posture and stride had both improved with stretching exercises, attended the earl in lieu of Guaire d’Arliss.

That the Michaelines were absent suggested they’d seen enough of nuptial bliss. If Cinhil were spending his nights talking with them, he’d soon be fixed on celibacy except for once a year to conceive another child.

That was not Elinor’s wish. She had married Cinhil too early in her grief for Cathan, but that did not mean she wished to eschew pleasures of the body _forever._

The absence of blue-clad knights and priests also worried Elinor on practical grounds, for the Vicar General had insisted that the order could handle the wedding feast. If they were not _here,_ if they left sweet Megan, who was kind to everyone, with empty tables… she, Elinor, would find out what punishment a princess could demand.

 _This_ bride raced to Elinor for an embrace as soon as she’d kissed Evaine. She curtsied to Cinhil—anyone would be a little shy of Cinhil—and then dragged Jamie Drummond by the hand toward the hall where the wedding feast would be held.

Cinhil let Davin run after her, and Elinor handed Ansel to Rhys so she could have a moment to walk beside her husband. Once with him, she had no idea what to say.

“Evaine Thuryn is not a prostitute,” Cinhil ventured.

“No.”

“She is a virtuous woman.”

“I have always believed so.”

“There are things I have thought and prayed upon.”

She let the silence stretch. Her happiness rose or fell on his whim, and she was weary of persuading and cajoling and reasoning—with everyone.

“What think you?” he asked.

“I wonder why Megan and Jamie’s wedding feast is to be held in the great hall when there are only the eight of us. The Vicar General insisted that it was all in the hands of the Michaelines, but I see none of them here—oh.”

She stepped through the great doors into a room that was _full_ —not just of Michaeline blue, but of _women_. “How—” she turned to Cinhil to ask, but Guaire stepped forward and swept a bow.

“Your Grace, may I present to you… your choice of ladies of good birth and breeding, with loyalty only to our cause.”

“How—”

“Sisters and nieces of the Michaelines. A few mothers and grandmothers are well, with sundry brothers and cousins. Anyone who was likely to be in danger as Imre’s wrath against the order grows.” Guaire bowed again. “Does it please Your Grace?”

Elinor turned to Cinhil, who was grinning beneath his neatly trimmed beard and mustache, then back to Guaire. _So many women. All the ladies I could ask for._

“Yes,” she said. “It pleases me greatly.”


End file.
